Enforce(92)

He nodded his head as she reached for me. “I need to talk with you.”

I glanced at Frank.

He cleared his throat and said under his breath, “Remember the terms, Nixon.”

“How could I forget?” I sneered and grabbed her hand to keep myself from jumping across the table and smacking the old man in his wrinkled face.





CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Goodbyes are for chumps.



Nixon

“GOOD GOD, I FORGOT how pink this room was.” I laughed and looked around the bright pink monstrosity that used to be Trace’s room. Pink stuffed animals lined the walls along with wallpaper that had pictures of ponies and castles. I pushed the animals off the bed and lay down. How many times had I done this as a kid? When I’d been afraid of my father. When my ma had told me to go hide during one of their meetings. Trace’s bed had been like a safe place for me, and now?

Now it seemed to be the exact opposite. Temptation, lust, everything I wasn’t supposed to feel for her — I did. How sick was it that the very thing I was protecting her from… in the end… was me? I was the most dangerous of all, because once I grabbed ahold of something, I didn’t release it. And I was holding Trace — no, I was freaking latching on to her. Suffocating her, bent on ruining her, just so I could have her all to myself.

I hated that Chase had been right.

Almost as much as I hated that for the first time in years… I was wrong.

I needed to make the cut, but that’s the thing about Trace. Cutting her out of my life? To protect her? Would be like stabbing myself in the heart. It wouldn’t be a mortal wound. It would destroy all that was still good within me, bleed me dry; it would end my existence. But for her? I’d do it a thousand times, a million times. I’d die every day… over and over again, repeating the process until she was safe.

“I must have really liked pink.” Trace laughed.

“You hated it.” I put my arms behind my head and sighed. “In fact, I distinctly remember your mom putting you in a pink dress, and you taking it off in front of the entire dinner party.” I left out the part where I’d been beaten for staring.

“Please tell me you weren’t—”

“I was nine!” I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Trust me. I was horrified. I thought girls had cooties. I closed my eyes and pointed, though.”

Trace blushed a pretty pink and crossed her arms then sat down next to me on the bed. “Rude. You should have saved me.”

The air was thick with tension. Oh, how right she was. Did she even know how many sleepless nights I’d had since her arrival at Elite? I’d been worse than a damn stalker. I had freaking turned on her location services on her phone just in case I lost her. Embarrassing, to say the least, when I wasn’t just texting in class, but checking the blue dot to make sure she was still on campus. Hell, I would go to the bathroom with her if I could.

With a sigh, I reached for her hand. “I was always saving you. Even when you didn’t know I was there, I was saving you.”

“Did you ever visit Wyoming?” Her voice was small, as if she was embarrassed to be asking the question. Her hand moved across my chest, and then her head lay across me. The smell of her shampoo was hypnotic. I breathed in my fill and sighed.

“Trace, you’re putting me in a hard spot. I can’t tell you everything, because it will just make you sad. I can’t be completely honest, and it kills me. It makes me want to scream, but I have responsibilities — not just to you — to my family, to your grandpa…” I cursed, feeling totally trapped. How did I convey to her the danger she was in? The danger her family was in? “Everything is pretty screwed up right now. I didn’t know you were going to find out this way. Believe me, if I had known, I would have…” My mind whirled with the possibilities, tightening as the pressure of her kiss flooded my mind.

“What?”

I licked my lips and let my mind go there. I let my imagination take me to the place where I was making love to the most beautiful girl in the world. Touching her body, bringing her pleasure, hearing her scream out my name as I made her mine. “…I would have kissed you harder. I would have fought for you more. I don’t know. I would have stolen you away, taken your virtue, made myself so permanently etched on your person that every time you took a breath it was my scent that was permeating the air.”

Trace’s breath hitched.

My fingers danced along her wrist, stopping at her pulse then sliding up to cup her face.

“I never visited Wyoming. My father wouldn’t let me, and at that time, I wasn’t in charge of anything, so I couldn’t bully my way into it.”